Holding US journalists to account...

A new US-based website aims to provide information about American journalists and thereby hold them accountable for their output.

News Transparency enables users to "find out more about the people who produce the news" and "hold them accountable, the same way that journalists hold other powerful institutions accountable, by posting reviews and sharing information."

The site features an alphabetical list of hundreds of US journalists and invites users to edit their profiles Wikipedia-style.

The profiles include links to a journalist's social media accounts, articles written about them, their political party affiliation, their charitable donations and their "professional" and "personal" networks.

"Polls show public distrust of the media at a record level, and academic research shows that roughly half of newspaper stories contain errors," says a News Transparency statement. It continues:

"This site aims to improve the accuracy, quality, and transparency of journalism by making it easier to find out about the individual human beings who produce the news -- human beings with opinions, relationships, history, and agendas.

That information should help readers, viewers, and listeners put what they are reading in better context, and it may even prompt some improvements by the journalists."

The site has been created by Ira Stoll, the founder of another website called FutureOfCapitalism.com and the former managing editor of the now defunct New York Sun.